January 9, over chrismas break, I walked down Bootjack trail on Mount Tamalpais. I did a bit of walking off the trail, because.
I saw a spring, and while I avoid wild water for fear of intestinal disease, this I drank some, sweet clear cool.

it was this brown rock green moss springhole I pictured as my entry into the "lowerworld." I was having trouble fixing the details, as I was supposed to, so I just imagined myself real small, like five inches tall, and I strode into the hole.

I bouldered a bit, jumping up down, over rocks, around corners, the water flowing against me. I was determining my consciousness level - am I dreaming? what happens next? can I decide? well somehow the water started flowing back into the cave, and I was swept up.

increasing speeds! careening around corners!

for a moment it looked like I was in the sewer scene from Dark Forces, but I didn't want to be in a computer game, so I titled back and floated on my back down the stream

but that was unchallengingly like my prone physical position

I saw through my eyelids at this point - large purple shifting shapes, unclear but rich, fuzzy pleasure sight, but not a destination, not an entrance to another world

the water picked up further and took harried corners, actually scooting me almost straight up at one point

until I was ejected forceful gentle from a gray rock similar hole except flat from a steep steep sloping cliffside

and I was floating and falling fairly fast down the side of this cliff, and the land was spread out around me, everything covered in straw, in dead pale grasses

and I was grounded, then floating coasting over the landscape

wondering what to do

and I realized I wanted to get in touch with my dog nature
so I became the dog that attacked me
things were happening fast now
I was running along a trail
I saw me,
I bit me,
I kept running
now in time with the drum
and my heart rate too
I was an athelete dog
on coyote ridge

then I became darcy
a little yippy ornery pooch
(from cyborganic a few years back)
I couldn't run so much
so I flew
and then I was justin again
hanging off of flying darcy with my arms around his furry belly

I was thinking I would next become
Duffy, the dead dog of the Darby's
but it seemed too much like all the dog's I known before review

so I fell to the ground
and I was sucked down
a bit of ground swimming tumbling into a cavern
there was a rat
he showed me his teeth
I was not scared, he wasn't interested in me
he became a profile rat,

seen from the side
then many rats, I could see him from above
this one big rat

was made up of many many many thousands of rats
and I climbed on this one big rat
and rode clinging to his back
as he climbed into a tight tunnel

he lumbered along, I felt his fur
he started climbing up and I let go
falling gentley into limbo
what now I thought?

and a pussy willow bud appeared
growing larger and spiking
to become a mountainous artichoke
of phosphorescent colours

I approached it to climb
and this shape appeared to me
and I was suddenly a white rabbit
running again to the drumtime
along one left furrow
leaping over a middle ledge to the right furrow
and back over
back and forth and forward
along this trail lined with crop stalks
I leaped over to the right
and collapsed on the ground
sucked in

falling human feet first
fast but not worried
found I could carve rock by scraping a trail with my hands and feet
I dove side through the rock
out of the downward speed
hanging in a self-made rock hole
then back in the stream
and in a cavernous

I thought I heard the drum speed up
our signal to return
so I shouted, screamed once
to create fissure in the cavern ceiling
that I might exit

sunlight peaked through
I climbed out
I was on the side of half dome,
in yosemite in california

I needed to get back to swat
so I started flying east
flew through norfolk nebraska

(birthplace of johnny carson!)
came upon chicago
and detoured straight up
no concrete for me

swooping through clouds
I joined a flock of sparrows
we swung back to swarthmore

where I became a tree
planted firmly
feeling mighty grounded
and wondering how to scratch an itch

and supporting life
sparrows and squirrels picking at my flesh for food
bugs and nuts
I look at a squirrel
he appears demonic
eyes red and wide opened
teeth bared
I boo right back at him
momentarily human I puff my chest
he blinks and goes back to eating

a storm is coming
I branch clasp the sparrow and squirrel to my chest
the sparrows beak in my left neck cant
the squirrels teeth in my right
I am bleeding gray tree sapblood
and hail strikes hard my back
further bloodied in spots

I descend to the ground gradually
push the sparrow and the squirrel down beneath me
we, I become part of the ground
feeling spread out

and I am drawn up
as a bud
a flower bud
I rise from the ground
stemmed
I am a sunflower

someone is softly snoring near me

I feel the suns rays on my petals
next to a well cleared path
a deer comes by, passes
hey, come back here,
he eats me
the drum is faster now
time to come back
I thought he might chew me in faster time with the drum
but he swallowed me whole
I hung in deer gray stomach sludge
until he peed/shat me out in a river
right over into a scary steep waterfall
descended quickly
and river flow fast
uphill
still a flower
I am expanding
then a bubble
till I am as big as the sky
too big
I am again a small bubble, I rise out of the water
awake.